Tips and strategies for online sales and marketing, and how to use SiteCaddy to manage your web presence.

Web/Tech

09/24/2011

At a recent trade show where I had the opportunity to speak with retailers, I had a sense that some were overwhelmed with choices. They believed in the power of the internet, and as clients they had the ability to manage their online presences... but where should they focus their efforts when there are only so many available hours each month? Website, SEO, SEM, social networking, newsletters, e-commerce... I felt like some people were paralyzed. There were so many things they could do, they ended up not doing anything. I think we all have that feeling in our lives sometimes!

Pardon me in advance if article states the obvious, but after that trade show I felt that sometimes we all need to simplify our goals and get back to basics. For those that are not sure where to focus their efforts, the point of this article is to:

Estiablish key measurements for website success

List some very simple tasks that can be completed in just minutes

Demonstrate how measuring your results will make you feel empowered

To act on the advice in this article, you need 3 things:

The ability to update your website and other online channels (e.g. Facebook)

The ability to view the visits to your website with a tool like Google Analytics

A desire to improve! ;-)

If you're using Site Caddy, then you have everything you need, so let's get started.

Goals for this Article

The next time you find yourself with a small block of time to spend on your online sales and marketing, I want you to feel like:

You know how to invest your time

You can easily pick a quick task and get it done

You know how to measure your results

A Simple Formula

The point of this article is to simplify things, so let's look at a very simple formula for success:

Success Rate = (Positive Actions) divided by (Visitors to Website)

First, let's define a "positive action". When a person goes to your website and does something that is good for your business, I would call this a positive action. Some of these are easier to measure than others. Examples would include:

Buying a product

Making a reservation

Submitting a contact form or gathering contact details

Viewing directions to your location

Sharing your information with friends (e.g. via Facebook)

Perhaps some of these outcomes are more positive than others, but every one of these actions might eventually result in a benefit to your business.

Reviewing our simple formula:

Success Rate = (Positive Actions) divided by (Visitors to Website)

If 1,000 people visit your website this month, and 50 of them take some positive action once they get there, then your success rate is 5% - and that's not bad.

Note: In a strictly e-commerce environment, we would consider your conversion rate to be the ratio between sales and visitors. But even if you are selling products on your website, there are other successful outcomes from a visit to your site (if even just brand awareness) and I prefer this broader approach.

You Can Lead a Horse to Water...

Obviously we are shooting for the highest possible success rate. It's a waste if we have 1,000 people going to our website every month, but only 2 of them do something we want them to do.

If we have enough people going to our website but only a few of them are taking a positive action...It would indicate that we need to improve our website. Make it easier to navigate. Give our visitors clear direction. Encourage them to do what we want them to do - perhaps even incentivize them. Make sure the site is updated and looks professional.

If we don't have enough people going to our website in the first place...Then this is an online marketing issue. We need to improve our visibility with search engines. We can get proactive and run online ads. We can make sure the people in our business are aware of our website.

OK - So What Should I Do?

In the last section we established that our goal is a high success rate for website visits. But let's simplify things even further. Let's forget about the success rate and say this:

If you get more visitors to your website, you increase your chances for positive actions

If you improve your website, you increase your chances for positive actions

Hmmm - wait a second... by that logic, almost anything you do will improve your online success? Yes - that's right - if you get more visitors, or improve your website and other online presences, you will increase your number of positive outcomes. And for those that feel that this logic is just too simple, then you've probably been overcomplicating things. And your competitors that have been steadily doing the simple things are probably passing you by while you wait to figure it all out.

If you are buying my logic, then you now know what to do. Do anything. Anything will help. And if you want a little inspiration, I have a list of little things you can do.

Pick One and Get Going

There are thousands of things you can do online to improve your business. To make it easier to choose, here is a list of tasks you can complete in a short amount of time and at no cost:

Very Quick

Just have 5-10 minutes to do something positive for your online presense? Here are a few tasks that will only take a few minutes:

Create a Twitter or Facebook account

Post something on Twitter or Facebook with a link back to your site

Post a news item or event to your website

Review your website analytics to make sure you're going in the right direction

Add a link to a friendly business on your website, and ask them to link back to you

Add a couple of contacts to your online database

Quick Enough

These tasks should not take more than 15-20 minutes to complete. Remember - we're not always seeking perfection, we're looking for small things we can do on a regular basis to make some positive impact:

Make sure there are clear directions on your home page

Prune your list of contacts

Start a new e-mail blast message - save for later if no time to finish

Start a new page on your website - save for later if no time to finish

Add a new product to your online catalog

Learn something new - how about AdWords?

Not As Quick but Still Important

Have a half hour to dedicate to your website?

Create and send a monthly e-mail blast

Review your entire website for anything out of date or inaccurate

Review your entire product catalog and make any updates necessary

Review other sites on the web (in our out of your sector) for good ideas

Create and post a special offer or discount

Get creative!

More To Come

These are short lists, and there are hundreds of other quick tasks out there. I will continue to update this list as I think of more quick tasks, and please feel free to post comments to this article with your own ideas!

Measuring Results Makes It Fun

In this article we are talking about little things you can do to:

Get more eyeballs on your website

Get those visitors to take a positive action

But let's face it - little improvements can be boring, and not necessarily inspire us to stick with it. Think of someone on a diet. It's logical that if they trimmed just 10 calories from their intake each day, and exercised for just 5 minutes per day, over the course of a year they would save themselves thousands of calories and get a little healthier. But the pounds would not come flying off, 6-pack abs would not miraculously appear in the mirror, and the chances of being self-motivated enough to maintain the new regimen would be slim.

Modern dieters have many tools at their disposal to stay encouraged. They can keep a chart of their calories, share tips online with other dieters, get precise measurements from scales, work with personal trainers, and so on. These little tricks can help each person to stay on track and reach their goals.

For me, website analytics (visitor reports) are the trick to staying motivated with your website. First, make sure you have easy access to your visitor numbers. Find out how many people are visiting your site, and how many visitors are going to the pages you want them to visit. This is the equivelent of a dieter stepping on the scale on New Year's Day - getting a baseline and setting some targets. Make a note of how many visitors you've had in the last month. Estimate how many of those visits have resulted in a positive outcome. That's our baseline, and our goal is to gradually improve on those numbers.

If you continue to make small improvements, you should see your numbers continue to make small jumps forward. And this can be all the motivation you need to keep going, and the proof you need to believe in what you are doing. To say "wow - I really can do this". Hopefully it will also encourage you to realize that the more you put into it, the more you will get out of it.

Summary

Feeling paralyzed by the number of things you could be doing to improve your business online? Break through that paralysis by identifying small tasks and completing them as time allows.

Remember that any small improvement that will either get more visitors to your website, or encourage those visitors to take a positive action, will have a beneficial result for your business.

Sure, get bolder as time and budget allow. But on a day-to-day basis if you're not sure what to do... just do something!